Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas! For Christmas Eve this year we hosted two families and had a traditional dinner with ham for the main meat and all of the traditional American sides you envision for Christmas dinner. It was a great evening of fellowship and delicious food. On Christmas morning, the kids slept in a bit because they were so tired from the previous night. I made snowman pancakes for breakfast which was a lot of fun. The kids first opened their stockings and played with those things for a bit, we ate breakfast and then we went on to opening presents. We tried to open one or two at a time, encourage them to play with the toys, and then open a few more. It was a leisurely day and the kids really enjoyed all of their stuff. As we were wrapping presents the night before (or pulling them out of the amazon boxes already wrapped), I realized that Santa Clause forgot to order the one thing Miss M wanted from Amazon. She had asked specifically for baby doll clothes for her Mel Chan doll baby. We had to write a note from Santa explaining how much Mrs. Clause loved the cookies and she would be sending Miss M and the K Man a special delivery to say thank you. Miss M was so excited. She checked each day for the delivery and even said, "I bet I am the only one getting another thank you gift from Mrs. Clause." Honey, I think you are right on that one. Parent fail! Needless to say the Mel Chan clothes came in record time from Amazon Japan, and Miss M thought due to the cold box it came all the way from the North Pole. Thankfully Amazon Japan was open on Christmas Day! In the evening we hosted some friends from church for chili who do not have family to spend time with and were not traveling home from Christmas. I was exhausted after all of the hosting and parties from the 23rd to the 25th, but am so glad we did everything we did. It was fun to have a full calendar and lots of people to spend time with over Christmas. We are truly blessed with our life here in Tokyo and the friends who are like family that God has provided for us.